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Hedge Funds Unite to Press Bankrupt PG&E for Management Overhaul

Scott Deveau, Mark Chediak and Erik Schatzker, Bloomberg News

Signage is displayed on the exterior of Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. (PG&E) headquarters in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. PG&E Corp. said it will file for bankruptcy in California after the cost of wildfires left it with potential liabilities of $30 billion or more, gutting its share price and prompting the departure of its chief executive officer.
, Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A group of investors including Knighthead Capital Management LLC, Redwood Capital Management and Abrams Capital Management have formed to press bankrupt utility giant PG&E Corp. for a management overhaul.

The hedge funds said in filings late Friday that they’re looking at nominating directors to PG&E’s board and want a say in who the company’s next chief executive officer will be. The funds represent almost 10 percent of PG&E’s outstanding shares, according to the filings.

The emergence of the latest group sets the stage for a potential fight among investors over the future of PG&E, which filed for bankruptcy in January to deal with $30 billion worth of wildfire liabilities. Shareholder BlueMountain Capital Management LLC has already nominated its own slate of directors that includes Jeff Ubben, the CEO of activist ValueAct Capital Management.

PG&E didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bill Johnson, the outgoing chief of power agency Tennessee Valley Authority, is PG&E’s top pick for the CEO spot, but the company hasn’t made a final decision, people familiar with the situation said this week.

The utility is also close to picking new directors for its board, and it probably won’t include BlueMountain’s picks, they said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. BlueMountain declined to comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Scott Deveau in New York at sdeveau2@bloomberg.net;Mark Chediak in San Francisco at mchediak@bloomberg.net;Erik Schatzker in New York at eschatzker@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, ;Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Catherine Traywick